Managers of public beaches, private beach resorts, golf courses, and other sandy surfaces are confronted with the significant challenge of cleaning, grooming, and otherwise maintaining those sandy surfaces on a regular basis. For example, after a period of heavy use, a popular beach area may be littered with beverage cans, food wrappers, cigarette butts, and other trash. As another example, sand bunkers on golf courses may collect plant debris, trash, and other unwanted material. Unless these sandy surfaces are maintained on a regular basis, they may fall into disrepair and/or the frequency of their use may diminish. Sandy surfaces can also be affected, from time to time, by natural or environmental disasters that may leave those sandy surfaces littered with debris, contaminated with oil, or otherwise accumulating unwanted material. Without fast, effective, and aggressive cleanup operations, sandy surfaces subjected to these kinds of disasters may be permanently ruined.
Unfortunately, when confronted with these various challenges, the sand cleaning apparatuses in use today are inadequate. For example, many conventional beach cleaning apparatuses are only configured to collect trash that accumulates on the beach surface, thereby missing trash, tar balls, contaminants, and other unwanted material that may exist just below the beach surface. Other conventional beach cleaning apparatuses cannot perform their cleaning functions without sinking into the sand, disrupting the natural grading of the sand, or otherwise substantially damaging the beach ecosystem. Thus, there is a need to provide methods and apparatuses for effectively cleaning, grooming, and otherwise maintaining sandy surfaces, such as beaches, with minimal disruption of those sandy surfaces following cleaning.